LIVE | Rubio hopeful for Iran deal, insists on nuclear curbs

(AFP) Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday expressed hope that a deal to end the war in Iran was in the cards, stressing that Tehran must severely curtail its nuclear program before any sanctions are lifted.

"There is the prospect before us, which could happen today, it could happen tomorrow, it could happen next week," Rubio told a Congressional panel.

Rubio insisted that Tehran must reopen the shipping channel for any peace agreement to take hold, while also agreeing to curb its nuclear activities in order to see sanctions lifted.

"Iran is being sanctioned because they've highly enriched uranium, Iran is being sanctioned because of their nuclear activities," Rubio said. "If they agree to give up those things, there will be sanctions relief."

While acknowledging that the Iranians "still have a lot of drones," Rubio defended the decision to go to war, saying it has significantly reduced the Islamic republic's ability to do harm.

"Iran has no navy left, they've lost a substantial percentage of their defense industrial base, Iran has lost a substantial percentage of their missile launchers," Rubio said.

He added: "And their economy is far worse today, and I mean, far worse today than it was six to nine months ago."

Rubio also stated that Iran's supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who was wounded in U.S.-Israeli attacks and has not been seen in public since assuming office, is alive and increasingly active.

"I think there are indications out there that he is increasingly engaging at some level," Rubio told the panel.

(AFP) Hezbollah will not accept a "partial ceasefire" with Israel, said a senior official of the Iran-backed terrorist group Iran, which refused to halt attacks on northern Israel in exchange for Israel not attacking the southern suburbs of Beirut.

"We will not accept a partial ceasefire," Mahmoud Qomati told AFP in a written statement, adding that "the Zionist enemy must know that any aggression against the suburbs could bring a deeper and more forceful response."

On Monday, President Trump announced a deal that Lebanese officials later said implied that Israel would refrain from attacking Beirut's southern suburbs in exchange for Hezbollah not attacking Israeli territory.

(AFP) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israel will help make the "terrorist regime" in Iran disappear, as negotiations to reach a peace deal between the United States and the Islamic republic appear to stumble.
"This terrorist regime is destined to disappear from the world, and we will help achieve this outcome; this regime will no longer threaten us with nuclear bombs and thousands of lethal ballistic missiles," Netanyahu said at an event marking the appointment of Maj. Gen. Roman Gofman as head of the Mossad.

The New York Stock Exchange opened slightly lower on Tuesday, taking a breather after a string of record highs, as investors closely watched both the situation in the Middle East and the dynamics of artificial intelligence-linked stocks.

In early trading, at around 13H34 GMT, the Dow Jones was down 0.24%, the Nasdaq lost 0.29% and the broader S&P 500 index gave up 0.19%.

(AFP) The ambassadors of Israel and Lebanon were received Tuesday at the State Department in Washington for a new session of direct talks, after Israel and the Hezbollah terrorist group exchanged gunfire despite Donald Trump's claim to have obtained a compromise on a ceasefire.

This fourth meeting between representatives of the two countries, which do not maintain diplomatic relations, is scheduled to last two days.

It brings together Israeli representative Yechiel Leiter and Lebanese Nada Hamadeh Moawad as well as Daniel Holler, a senior adviser to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is not participating in this session.

The Israeli military on Tuesday warned residents of the southern Lebanese town of Nabatiyeh to evacuate the area in the face of planned attacks.

"In light of the Hezbollah terrorist organisation's violation of the ceasefire agreement, the IDF is compelled to act against it with force," the military's Arabic-language spokesman, Colonel Avichay Adraee, posted on X.

A senior Iranian military official said Tuesday that a resumption of hostilities with the United States was inevitable as negotiations between Tehran and Washington appeared to stall.

"The United States demands our total surrender, and the Iranian nation will never surrender," said Mohammad Jafar Assadi, deputy head of Iran's central military command, Khatam al-Anbiya. "Without surrender, war is inevitable."

The Israeli military reported that its air defense systems intercepted two projectiles that crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel, hours after Trump's announcement.

Israel and Hezbollah clashed overnight despite President Donald Trump's announcement that the two sides had agreed to cease fighting before U.S.-sponsored Israel-Lebanon talks on Tuesday.